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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28270443">Penrose Stairs</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaigePenn/pseuds/PaigePenn'>PaigePenn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Elsewhere University (Webcomic)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:27:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>561</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28270443</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaigePenn/pseuds/PaigePenn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><b>From Wikipedia:</b><br/>The <b>Penrose stairs</b> or <b>Penrose steps</b>, also dubbed the <b>impossible staircase</b>, is an staircase in which the stairs make four 90-degree turns as they ascend or descend yet form a continuous loop, so that a person could climb them forever and never get any higher. This is clearly impossible in three-dimensional Euclidean geometry.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Penrose Stairs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By this point you’ve probably heard mention of the penrose stairs in the theoretical maths building. Yes, it’s a single story building. Hence why the stairs which decided to manifest there a fortnight ago seem to be of the penrose variety (or escherian, depending on who you ask). Allow me to offer a warning, freely given: they are not.</p><p>Certainly, they give the illusion of infinite repetition, and if you climb the stairs, you will think you find yourself back on the same landing from which you started.</p><p><em>This is not so</em>. Certain things are impossible even on a fairy mound.</p><p>If you were to climb a dozen flights, or a score, or even a gross, the landing on which you emerged would still look quite similar to where you began. It might even appear identical. That is where the refraction is centered, after all. The real differences are in the building beyond the landing, and in the world beyond the building.</p><p>You might not notice at first, especially if you only traveled a flight or two away from the place where you entered. The places and the people seem so similar to the ones you left behind.</p><p>But gradually, it becomes evident that, though similar, they are not the same. Perhaps your best friend’s eyes have always been a periwinkle, but now you realize that they are more of a silver. (But perhaps that can be explained by other reasons. This is Elsewhere, after all, and she may have traded the color.) Perhaps a few words in a novel, or a line in a movie, differs from your memory. Perhaps the sun is red, or there is a second moon in the night sky. (If this is so, you have travelled, far, far away from where you began. Either get used to your new home or else return as swiftly as you can manage.)</p><p>If you must travel via the staircase, count carefully how many flights you traveled, and do not forget. The landings do not move, so if you can descend exactly as many flights as you climbed, or climb exactly as many flights as you descended, you will return to the place from whence you began. But each landing is so similar to the next, that if you lose count, you may never find your way back. Do not depend on your friends to remember for you. Ones you bring with you may think you are doing the counting, and ones you leave behind cannot tell you from your neighboring selves. Do not leave something behind to mark your beginning location. You will find an identical (or close enough) object on each landing you pass.</p><p>I do not know whether I overshot or stopped too soon. The students here seem to recognize me, but I am haunted by a constant feeling of homesickness, and reality feels a step to the left and a quarter turn widdershins.</p><p>Also, whoever built that marble track to harness perpetual motion: I applaud your ingenuity, but that was a terrible idea. The marbles passing by the landing here must be from several thousands of flights above by now, and whatever they’re made of, it is definitely not ordinary glass. I would have dismantled the track myself, except that I feared to touch it, and the creator ought to take responsibility for the creation.</p>
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